Gas prices break record, top $2 a gallon

June 11, 2000
Web posted at: 10:16 p.m. EDT (0216 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- For the first time, the average price of a gallon of gas in some major metropolitan areas has exceeded the $2 mark.

Unconvinced that the prices are justified, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner will meet representatives from the oil industry on Monday.

"The questions are: is it a function of the market, is it glitches with the new clean, reformulated gasoline or is it collusion or price gouging?" said Richardson after an appearance on CNN's Late Edition.

"We need answers to those questions," he said. "Prices of gasoline in the midwest are unacceptably high."

RESOURCES CNN In-Depth Special: Priming the pump     MESSAGE BOARD Rising oil prices

Richardson said the hope was that prices would decline. "I think there are indicators that by the end of the summer the average price will be $1.45. We're confident of that."

In Milwaukee the price was $2.04 and the top spot went to Chicago, where the cost hit $2.13, according to the Lundberg Survey, which checked prices at 10,000 service stations around the country

But the average price is well under the all-time high in the United States. Factoring in inflation, the average cost of a gallon of gas would have been $2.67 in March 1981.

Nationwide, the average price of a gallon of gas rose nearly 9 cents during the past three weeks, according to Lundberg.

The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular was $1.63 on June 9, up 8.94 cents from the previous survey carried out on May 19.

The lowest recorded price the survey found was in Phoenix, at $1.39.

Rise partly due to smog-reduction measure

The price rise is partly due to new formulation requirements intended to reduce the amount of nitrous oxides, which cause smog.

The new requirements affect about a third of the nation's gas supplies, particularly those in the northeast and midwest, said said Trilby Lundberg, the survey's publisher.

Despite modest increases in production by OPEC members, the price of crude oil remained strong at about $30 per barrel.

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The Lundberg Survey
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries - OPEC
Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. Department of Energy

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